


wearing someone else's shirt

by ascience



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Angst, Borussia Dortmund, Footy Ficathon, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 15:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2315129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/pseuds/ascience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mario leaves. And he doesn't come back.</p><p>For <a href="http://thesilverwitch.livejournal.com/31896.html?thread=372120#t372120">this</a> prompt: "mario götze/marco reus; I remember the day you told me you were leaving (I wish I could wake up with amnesia). "</p>
            </blockquote>





	wearing someone else's shirt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apollothyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollothyme/gifts).



> Title from Chris Ayer's Turnip.
> 
> I'm on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/anexactscience).

One day, Mario leaves BVB, leaves Dortmund. Leaves Marco.

Except, that’s not quite true because Mario doesn’t suddenly leave one day, it was a process, Marco knows that. In fact, Mario must secretly have been leaving for months before he mentions it to Marco and that’s what really hurts.

Marco remembers the day that Mario tells him in crystal-clear detail, like the slow-motion replay of a missed chance to score. The memory still clogs his lungs.

“They’re transferring me to Munich. They said it’s my best chance.” Mario says in a monotonous voice and looks at the ceiling, away from Marco.

 _They_ are transferring him to Munich.

 _They_ said it’s his best chance.

It’s _them, them, them,_ always _them_ when Marco inquires, objects, argues, clenches his fists.

Mario tenses like every word from Marco is a punch in the gut and after a while, Marco is exhausted from pretending he’s strong and he gives up. Crashes their lips together. Punches Mario once, for real, in the middle of the chest. Walks away for his own sanity.

It used to be _Mario & Marco_ and now it’s Mario first and Mario second and Mario third. Marco is somewhere in the distance.

The feeling of betrayal wallows in Marco’s heart and Mario, well, he wallows in Munich.

Time passes, pain doesn’t.

Weeks later, Marco still falls asleep thinking about the day Mario told him he was leaving.  
The green neon light of the alarm clock creates shadows, hovering in the room and moving with the rise and fall of Marco’s chest.

If it’s a good night, Marco wakes up six hours later (barely two hours if it’s a bad one) and the first thing he sees is the boring beige ceiling.

Before Mario left, he never noticed how many cracks there are in the surface and maybe it’s because he never had the time to count.  
A spider starts building a net in one corner. It flutters whenever Marco opens the window and he tells himself every day that he’ll remove it tomorrow, definitely tomorrow, but he never raises the energy.  
The spider keeps building and another calendar sheet is turned without Mario returning.

Marco gets up late, shuffles to get dressed and drinks cold left-over coffee. He powers through training, makes it hurt as much as possible, kicks the ball with as much force as he can.

The others are joking around in the locker room but there’s one voice missing so Marco laughs twice as loud and twice as fake.  
Mats eyes him with an inscrutable expression on his face and the next day, he draws Marco aside before changing clothes.

“It’s okay.” he says but it isn’t.

Mats lays the tips of his index fingers on the corners of Marco’s mouth and pushes them up.  
Marco tries to turn away but involuntarily a vague, sad smile spreads before he can hold it back.

Driving home, Marco spots a shop that has a poster of Mario in his new Bayern jersey in the display window.  
Marco buys it for twenty euros and an autograph, a ludicrous price for a laughable photo. He throws the package onto the back seat where it absorbs Marco’s radiating guilt and anger until he hangs it up inside of his wardrobe.  
The Bayern red flashes up between his shirts every morning when he gets dressed. Marco makes his peace with it.

“Which player would you buy if you could choose anyone?”, a reporter asks at one point, expectation written on their face, pen scrawling across their notepad.

Marco doesn’t lie.

“I’d – I would buy back Mario.”

The press jumps at that statement greedily but Marco changes channels when Mario – still sweaty and grasping for words after a match – is asked to comment on a replay of Marco’s quote.

Marco feels hollow every day, a hole in his heart the size of Mario.

They meet again at an international and Mario acts as if nothing’s happened.  
Amnesia doesn’t come quite as easily for Marco. But he makes it work and puts on a smile and swallows dryly.

At midnight he retches, supporting himself by clinging onto the side of the sink, but all he can wash away is bitter saliva.

Marco feels a light touch on his upper arm send a hot spark through his shoulder to his abdomen.

It’s Mario, who must have woken up and got up from his bed. Genuine worry shines from his clear eyes. He helps Marco back to bed, gives him a glass of water to drink, waits at the bedside until Marco is calm and presses his lips to his forehead.

He doesn’t say sorry.

Marco wants to be able to go through one day and not remember that Mario’s gone, just one more time.  
He wishes he could just _forget_ but the next morning he wakes up, drenched in sweat, a strangled cry on his lips. He counts the cracks in the ceiling.

Every single bone in his body hurts and there’s a yearning in his chest that grows and grows whenever Mario talks to him. There’s no space left in his ribcage and it’s all Marco can think about.

He always thought that home was Dortmund, yellow and black.  
Now that Dortmund and Mario aren’t the same thing anymore, he realizes that maybe home has been Mario all along. And Marco doesn’t know how to deal with homesickness.

The only thing Marco really _does_ know how to do anymore is play football so he does exactly that. Runs for miles and scores goals on an endless sea of green, among an endless gust of chants. He may be exhausted but he can still kick a ball and if that's all he's got for now, then that's enough.

 _Marco, Marco, Marco_ , the fans shout with raw throats.  
_Mario, Mario, Mario_ , is the thought that runs through Marco’s mind. He takes a deep breath, feels something loosen in his mind and takes the shot. He doesn’t have to check to know that it reaches its target. Even when the target isn’t Mario.

Mario doesn’t come back to Dortmund. And Marco. Marco doesn’t stop waiting.


End file.
